6 | NORTH SHORE, BREEZE 
Nov. 3, 1916. 
My Conception of the Presidency 
By CHARLES EVANS HUGHES 
ON the eve of election day the American people are en- 
titled to a summary of the things I have stood for in 
this campaign, as they are the things I shall stand for as 
President. 
No man. can tell in advance what unexpected de- 
mands the next four years may present, but one whose 
conception of the President’s duty rests upon funda- 
mental principles can describe with entire sincerity how 
the problems of administration would be approached. and 
in what spirit they would be solved. 
A man charged with the duty of reaching a desired 
goal knows that the road to it is found in following thut 
path which sound judgment and clear vision open up 
step by step. I can show the road I expect to travel. 
I propose first of all to start right. The President 
is primrarily an Executive. It is his supreme duty to 
attend to the business of the Nation, to safeguard its in- 
terests, to anticipate its needs, to enforce its laws. 
The first act of a President who takes this view of 
his duties is to call about bim the ablest Cabinet the 
country can furnish, men who can deal with tremendous 
international and domestic problems which will confront 
us in the next four years. 
My conception of the Presidency differs absolutely 
from that of Mr. Wilson. I look upon the President as 
the Administrative head of the Government. He looks 
upon the President as primarily the political leader and 
lawiraker of the Nation. 
In the two departments of Government most closely 
touching our foreign relations—the Department of State 
and the Department of the Navy—he chose men whom he 
knew to be wholly unequal to their duties. Administra- 
tive obligation was subordinated to political exigency. 
I can assure the country that any administration under 
my direction will stand upon sound administrative ground 
with the ablest Cabinet the country can supply. 
Across the road we are to travel this next four years, 
even though we start right and move with prudence and 
courage, serious hazards are thrown like breaks in a 
roadway made by a torrential rain. These all rise out of 
the war torrent which has overwhelmed Europe. The 
first has to do with out foreign relations. It is the Presi- 
dent’s duty to safeguard the interests of our own Nation 
and to preserve the friendship of every other Nation. 
No man is more determined than I to maintain the 
peace which the United States, Spain, Sweden, Norway 
and all the American republics now enjoy. But I should 
seek to maintain that peace by a firm and courteous in- 
sistence on the rights of our citizens at home and abroad. 
An American in Mexico is subject to Mexican law; 
but he is an American still, and is entitled to the protec- 
tion of his own Government in his lawful business. For 
one, I shall never consent to a policy which leaves Ameri- 
cans helpless against the lawlessness of any country in 
which they have a right to do business. 
There confronts labor in the next four years a con- 
dition more serious than any that American laboring men 
have been called upon to face. When this war began over 
1 000,000 American working men were seeking vainly 
for erployment. When the war ends, and the developed 
energies of a new Europe are thrown into commercial 
production, our Nation will face a competition such as it 
never knew. 
One of two things must happen—either millions of 
n will be seeking work in vain or there must be thought 
out in advance the problem of commercial organization 
as France and England and Germany are seeking to think 
out the problem today. Every one of these Nations is 
preparing to defend its own market by a protective tariff. 
The end of the war will end also the opportunities for 
labor created by the war. The millions in the trenches — 
today will be our industrial competitors tomorrow. If 
we are to save our laboring men from a catastrophe we 
must plan a tariff protection along sound, just and econ- 
omic lines. To this endeavor I pledge myself and the 
men who are to be my colleagues. 
In this matter again I differ absolutely from the 
policy of the present Administration. Democratic plat- 
forms have declared that the Government has no right 
to levy tariff duties except for income. 
I pledge myself and those who stand with me to deal 
with the needs of laboring men the country over, what- 
ever their trade or organization, upon the principle of 
giving the largest protection possible to every American 
working man and the largest participation possible in the 
prosperity of our industries with special favors to none. 
Finally, it is to be remembered that every European 
Government is putting itself behind its industries; organ- 
izing them, encouraging them and suggesting economies. 
When the commercial struggle begins anew, the indus- 
tries of every European country will go into the world 
markets backed by the effective cooperation and intelligent 
oversight of their Government. 
Our National policy requires that Government main- 
tain a strict supervision of business organization. This 
can be done effectively and yet leave the Government free 
to encourage legitimate and wholesome business enter- 
prise. I stand for such supervision and control of busi- 
ness, but I demand also that business great and small 
(and especially the small business) be treated fairly and 
justly. Only under such conditions can business pay 
living wages or compete with foreign manufacturers. 
In this respect again the present administration holds 
a policy entirely opposite. It has viewed business enter- 
prise with suspicion and has made the Government a 
brake to stop the wheels of legitimate industrial progress. 
It has treated the business men of this country as though 
they were suspicious characters. It has assumed that 
capital and labor are natural enemies. In four years it 
has put this country further on the road to class war 
than has been accomplished in a generation before. The 
men who stand with me believe in the honesty of the 
American workingman, they believe no less in the honesty 
of the American business man, and they believe that the 
common good is to be found not in class war but in mutual 
justice and fair dealing, not as between capital and labor 
in the abstract, but as between men and men. 
You ask me what road I propose to travel? These 
are the milestones which mark it—an Executive respon- 
sible to the whole Nation, a Cabinet chosen from the 
blest Americans, a foreign policy that stands courteously 
but firmly for American rights, a flag that protects the 
American in his lawful rights wherever his legitimate 
business may take him. a preparation for trade competi- 
tion which shall protect all groups of American workmen, 
a Government oversight of business which will fearlessly 
eliminate abuses, but will act on the. assumption that the 
average business man is honest, and, finally, a domestic 
policy which looks to industrial peace, and to sound and 
permanent prosperity based upon the development of 
American trade and the building up of American indus- 
tries. 
